Andrea Nguyen discusses the cookbook business

Adam Roberts, one of the first breakout food bloggers, launched a new podcast earlier this year called The Amateur Gourmet Podcast (named after his blog and taking a bit of a turn from his previous podcast called Lunch Therapy). Several episodes feature the topic Eat Your Books Members love best: cookbooks, including the most recent episode, in which Roberts interviews EYB Member favorite author Andrea Nguyen. She has another book coming out in early 2023 titled Ever-Green Vietnamese: Super-Fresh Recipes, Starring Plants from Land and Sea.

The hour-long interview is focused on the topic of the cookbook business, where Nguyen talks about how she got into writing cookbooks, how she continues to get books published, how much money cookbook authors can expect to make, when self-publishing makes sense, and more. As Roberts says in his intro to the episode, “if you’ve ever thought about publishing a cookbook, or just like collecting cookbooks and want to learn more about how the sausage is made, this is the episode for you.”

In the interview, I learned that Nguyen also started a cookbook-focused podcast earlier this year along with veteran authors Molly Stevens, Kate Leahy, and Kristin Donnelly. That podcast is titled Everything Cookbooks, and the twenty episodes cover topics including cookbook proposal writing tips, how to work with an editor, recipe testing, photography and design tips, and interviews with successful authors.